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word -- the reason they want the roads in the first place was to clear out the hornet's nest of the taliban in the area. how was it misjudged by so much? questiont sure it is a of misjudgment. it might appear that way. the security in the country in general began to deteriorate. at the same time, when looking at security in afghanistan, it is not one single footprint. clearly the north and the west is a different security profile than the east and the south. when we began work on one road in the south, for example, working in the same types of conditions as other roads in that area -- as a matter of fact, another extension of the road, we did not have nearly the security situation that developed later into the program. our historic experience was at certainly a serious level of security but not to the extent of what we are experiencing now. >> is a typical to have as many subcontractors as you have on the project? you would typically have 24first-tier subs, and more second-tier subs? >> of the 24 first-tier subs, they would typically be very small. >> give me an example. for 64 miles, you h
word -- the reason they want the roads in the first place was to clear out the hornet's nest of the taliban in the area. how was it misjudged by so much? questiont sure it is a of misjudgment. it might appear that way. the security in the country in general began to deteriorate. at the same time, when looking at security in afghanistan, it is not one single footprint. clearly the north and the west is a different security profile than the east and the south. when we began work on one road in...
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economy, more resilient, constitutional, stable government that is capable of withstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one of my questions, madam chair, is going to be questioning the sustainability of the efforts. congress has appropriated over $60 billion for relief and reconstruction in afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. we know from experience in bosnia in the 1990's and more recently in iraq that a reduction in troop levels as not mean a drop in contractor activity. in some cases, it is a matter of increase. there has been increase reliance on contractors to fulfill the logistical roles once performed by the military in those instances. eventually, the contractor presence will also decrease as we move support of large-scale off-budget scanned it -- spending to more direct to the afghan government directly. this is why our reconstruction strategy must focus on insuring that afghans can sustain what we have helped build. how many additional schools and health, as we can construct, but also that there are teachers and health c
economy, more resilient, constitutional, stable government that is capable of withstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one of my questions, madam chair, is going to be questioning the sustainability of the efforts. congress has appropriated over $60 billion for relief and reconstruction in afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. we know from experience in bosnia in the 1990's and more recently in iraq that a reduction in troop levels...
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Jul 1, 2011
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notwithstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one might questions -- and i am sure you will talk about that and the sustainability of efforts. we invested heavily as americans to achieve the goal to build up afghan petitions since 2002. congress has appropriated $60 billion for relief and reconstruction and afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. now we know from bosnia and iraq that a reduction in troop levels does not mean a drop in contract activities. in fact, there has been an increase. in fact, there is a reliance to perform logistical roles. essentially, the contractor presence will also decrease as we move our support of large scale -- off-budget spending to more direct budget aide to the afghan government directly. the strategy must focus now, more than ever, to assure afghans are able to sustain what we helped to build. we must consider, not only, how many additional schools to construct but also whether afghanistan will have teachers and medical professionals to sustain
notwithstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one might questions -- and i am sure you will talk about that and the sustainability of efforts. we invested heavily as americans to achieve the goal to build up afghan petitions since 2002. congress has appropriated $60 billion for relief and reconstruction and afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. now we know from bosnia and iraq that a reduction in troop levels does not mean a drop in...
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it was taliban territory it from day one that the u.s. came into -- >> why didn't you do the same thing on this road? >> our experience working on roads in the area indicated that it was not like -- >> once you figured out it was, why didn't you go back to the drawing board and do what you had done in the previous incident? >> senator, i think that is a great question, and my understanding with this hearing is getting to the lessons learned. going back to my opening statement, where i said we cannot just look at the metric of scope schedule budget, there comes a time when we probably should have stepped back and said, we have to change the scope, because we need to get the road and, but maybe there's a different way of getting it done. what ended up happening is we all went into a reactive mode. we had the security situation and had to increase the security of footprint to prevent that particular situation from happening again. from the lessons learned, we had to recognize how the security environment can change relatively quickly in the
it was taliban territory it from day one that the u.s. came into -- >> why didn't you do the same thing on this road? >> our experience working on roads in the area indicated that it was not like -- >> once you figured out it was, why didn't you go back to the drawing board and do what you had done in the previous incident? >> senator, i think that is a great question, and my understanding with this hearing is getting to the lessons learned. going back to my opening...